I'm outta luck, outta love

My friend Sudha and I have always clashed about music. And then one day in college, we discovered our mutual love for 80's hair bands. I think that's really when our friendship deepened. A few years ago he went to a Def Leppard concert and got really drunk and bought me a Def Leppard t-shirt. The next day when he was telling me about it he said, "I really have no idea why I bought that. It's not like you're ever going to wear it in public." Well au contraire, my friend, because I did just that on Tuesday night.

The concert was amazing for several reasons:

1. It was Def Leppard and Journey.
2. I was wearing a Def Leppard t-shirt.
3. Diane was wearing a bandana and french-rolled jeans.
4. John was wearing his high school Seniors shirt circa 1990.
5. The crowd itself was worth the price of admission.
6. Drew kicked over a chair while playing air guitar.
7. Oh did I mention it was Def Leppard and Journey!!

Journey went on first with their new lead singer who we referred to as Not Steve Perry. I was sure they were going to suck without Steve Perry, however, I was wrong. Not Steve Perry sounded like Steve Perry. As did the drummer. I was kind of left wondering why they even hired Steve Perry in the first place since everyone else in the band sounds exactly like him. Then I remembered Steve Perry's mullet, "Oh Sherrie" and the fact that he rules everything, and I was like-oh yeah. That's why.

Journey sounded really good. I was impressed. I felt that they dipped into their new stuff a little too often, but "Don't Stop Believin'" made it all worthwhile. Even that horrible song "Chain Reaction" that they played that made me want to kill myself. It all melted away when that song started. I half expected Steve Perry to walk out in the middle of the show to surprise us, but alas it didn't happen. Even though the singer sounded a lot like Perry, I missed the man himself. Not Steve Perry kind of reminded me of someone who probably sang a lot of Steve Perry's songs at karaoke bars before joining the band.

After a brief intermission, Def Leppard came on. I pretty much wet myself. The first half of their set was definitely not as good as the second half. During the first half they played 2 songs off their new album (but only 2 thank God), and they played a lot of really old stuff. Then the familiar intro of "Hysteria" started, and it was like they said, "Yeah okay let's get this started." After that they made an attempt on my life by playing a medley of "Photograph", "Armageddon It" and "Animal". Um hello-all in one song? Everytime they went into a new song, I would scream, "It's too much! I can't take it!" It's a miracle I survived that much adrenaline pumping through my body at one time.

One-armed drummer was in full effect. At one point, Joe introduced him (Joe=lead singer), and we all did the one-armed salute (right arm in air making fist, left arm at side). I don't really know if that's an official one-armed salute, but that's what he was doing so I decided to call it that. Diane was holding up two arms, and we were like, "That's just mean. Why don't you just throw it in his face that you have two arms."

After DL's encore of "Love Bites" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" we made our way back to the car, changed by what we had just seen.

To sum up Tuesday night: Steve Perry is the man, "Oh Sherrie" is awesome, and I will make out with Def Leppard right now I swear to baby Jesus.